To avoid major vulnerabilities that could lead to sensitive information theft, financial fraud, or operational disruption, it’s crucial to have visibility into your custom application logic and data flows. While perimeter firewall defenses are still necessary, relying solely on them to protect increasingly powerful web properties is a risky gamble with serious consequences.
Incorporating specialized web application firewalls (WAFs) that are designed to analyze requests within the full context of your application environments – and enhanced with AI for greater accuracy – allows you to secure your systems and confidently develop advanced digital capabilities. By adopting a layered defense-in-depth strategy that combines both network and application-level protections, you can safely deliver the seamless, personalized digital experiences that are key to building lasting customer relationships and achieving operational excellence in 2024.
If you run any online services, chances are you already have traditional firewall protection guarding your overall network. These firewalls filter incoming traffic based on a set of predefined rules that primarily focus on protocol, port number, IP address ranges, and basic connection state.
Traditional firewalls provide effective perimeter protection against classic network-focused cyberthreats. However, they lack the context needed to understand the application logic, user workflows, and data structures unique to custom web apps and APIs. These firewalls merely scan network packets as they arrive and decide whether to allow or block them, leaving them susceptible to the evolving tactics of AI-powered attackers.
